will writing advice

swansea_lad

Hi

Anyone recommend where to change my mothers will? We had an appointment with the solicitor that drafted the original will, but to change the will and appoint a new power of attorney and for the solicitor to be the executor would have cost £2500. The original executor and power of attorney did not want to continue due to a family arguement.   Thanks

Pennylane

Do you mean £2,500? 

swansea_lad

Pennylane said:

Do you mean £2,500? 

Sorry i have corrected that

bobster2

Can you explain a bit more - your mother wants to change her will? Does that fee include what the solicitor will charge for acting as executor when the time comes? i.e. the fee they will charge for administering the estate?

SiliconChip

Changing the Will to appoint a new Executor is trivial and should cost no more than low £hundreds (writing my entire Will cost me just over £100 5 years ago, although I'm having it rewritten next week so I'll have a more up to date figure then).

A new Attorney can't simply be appointed, your mother will need to go through the entire process again. But there is usually no need to involve a solicitor with that, it's something that she and you can do together so that the only cost is the registration fee (£85 per application).

Edit: since I was last at the solicitor (actually 6 years ago, not 5) there has been a change of senior partner who has increased charges. I'm going to be charged £100 + VAT for the update to my Will, if they had done it as an entirely new Will the cost would have been £189 + VAT.

Keep_pedalling

Does your mother still have the metal capacity to make a new will and LPA?

swansea_lad

Yes, i think the family arguement has upset her and its making it more difficult.

Savvy_Sue

If there's going to be difficulty with a family executor then appointing a professional makes some sense, if it's worthwhile. the alternative is to appoint a different family member, and if things get difficult they can instruct a solicitor to do whatever's needed. 

£2500 to act as executor would be an excellent rate, but if the £2500 is merely to change the will to make them executors, and draw up PofA, then that's pricey. 

RAS

Unless there's a really good reason to make the solicitor the executor, it is best to use a family member as solicitors are costly in this context.

That person(s) can always take legal advice or get a law firm to obtain probate if necessary. The Probate register will store the will for £30.

MobileSaver

swansea_lad said:

We had an appointment with the solicitor that drafted the original will, but to change the will and appoint a new power of attorney and for the solicitor to be the executor would have cost £2500.

No recommendations but, to give you a reference point, a relative in mid-Wales just arranged a new will and PoA and the breakdown was something like £200 for the will writing and £800 for the PoA.

RAS

And the POA can be done on-line for the cost of the fees, without a solicitor.